New 5-State Southeast Racing Series Offers Over $50,000 in Cash and Prizes in Five Weekends. Southeast Regional Series to also benefit the non-profit globalbike.

Greenville, SC – May 1, 2013 – Anyone can win on any day. It’s what makes our sport fun to watch. It’s what causes the breakaway to form amidst almost certain doom and gives the underdog a reason to dream and to believe. In every sport, from the World Series to the NASCAR Sprint Cup to the Champions League, series are used to pick the absolute finest and now a new one will challenge the Southeast peloton in its quest for the best.

The Southeast Regional Series (SRS) produced by Start Smart Cycling is an exciting new race series that crisscrosses the southeast region of the U.S. Five race weekends spanning five months across five states. High five. It’s a veritable tour of the region.

The idea behind SRS is to increase the racing quality of the already strong Southeast peloton. Combining each of the five state’s riders into a single race will create larger fields with a higher level of competition and ultimately harder and better racing. Feast your eyes on us, New England and California! It’s time for the Southeast racing scene to receive some applause! These courses are legit and have passed the wow-that-was-an-awesome-course test. While the day’s best will be standing atop the podium, SRS is open to all ages and abilities of athletes.

In the SRS, a Points Omnium will be used to determine the overall winner, as well as the PEZ Cycling News Sprinter and Stan’s NoTubes KOM/QOM competitions, complete with their own leader jerseys by Hincapie Sportswear. Daily podiums allow each category to proudly display those jerseys as well as give out some sponsor love, or just personal glory in the form of Instagrams. The inaugural SRS has got it all. And as if that wasn’t enough of an incentive, the series purse totals over $50,000 dollars in daily and overall prizes.

What’s more, SRS has selected globalbike, an internationally recognized non-profit located in the Southeast, as its beneficiary. Over the past seven years, globalbike has used the power of a bike to transform hundreds of thousands of lives in the developing world, primarily Africa.

The Southeast Racing Series will kick off in pristine Albany, Georgia, May 25-26, then travel through Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee, before culminating in the cycling-friendly town of Greenville, South Carolina, September 14-15. Each weekend follows the classic formula of a downtown criterium led by the official SRS BMW pace car on Saturday followed by a road race Sunday morning, allowing ample time to get home in time for work or school on Monday. Each Sunday afternoon, a pink SRS leaders jersey, a polka dot Stan’s NoTubes KOM/QOM jersey, and a green pin-stripe PEZ Cycling News sprinters jersey will be taken home to the envy of all those in your races.

Brag about it. Tweet about it. Facebook it. Train in it. Take pictures in it and e-mail them to your mother. But in a month’s time get ready to defend it because anything can happen. Get the complete SRS schedule and registration deets here: www.srs-racing.com